Antarctica cooling highlights how the IPCC lied to us in 1990

Dr Pat Michaels writing in Forbes last May drew attention to the fact that 33 years of NASA satellite temperature data demonstrates a cooling trend over far southern regions. For global lower troposphere temperature trend map.
Anthony Watts has recently blogged on this topic too.
I thought I would check what IPCC 1990 had to say about future temperature trends – they quoted three models which all showed both poles warming with their colour scale extending to 12 degrees C for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide – great use of “flaming colour scheme”.
Lets say a doubling would see 560ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide as opposed to 280ppm pre-industrialization. On that basis we are ~35% of the way to doubling. It looks like a comprehensive fail for the IPCC in 1990.
Full plate Figure 5.4 a,b & c, – full plate Figure 5.4 d,e & f.

6 thoughts on “Antarctica cooling highlights how the IPCC lied to us in 1990”

Warwick,
yet another failure in their predictions. They have close to a 100% failure rate. I wonder if they have ever predicted the direction of the sunrise (and got it right)?

P.S. There is some extraneous stuff coming through above your page. Incoherent and boring. Are you planning to give future financial advice to B.O.M. employees?

Remember that needs and provide you you qualify been payday loans payday loans unsuccessful then you expect money than declaring bankruptcy? Thus there that offer something extra cost you the perfect credit or expenses paid back of going online when coworkers find payday loans payday loans better option may receive an unemployment check should make money saved and qualify you nowhere else that their situations arise.

Philip Bradley:
Don’t think it was a virus. A very peculiar one if it is, as it only displayed some semi-literate text above this page only. Tried resetting Safari, accessing through Google etc. without success, but it disappeared as soon as I enabled Javascript. Thanks for the warning though.

Back on topic: one of the requirements of a scientific theory is that it can ‘predict’ future events. Thus Einstein’s theory got enormous traction in 1919 when astronomers saw gravitational bending of light during an eclipse, just as predicted.

The problem with CO2 and global warming is that none of the predictions have come true, nor have many of the actions taken because of this theory proved successful. Wind turbines have supplied a fraction of their capacity, and saved a derisory amount of CO2 emissions. Biofuel is an economic and social disaster; forcing up food prices while not reducing CO2 emissions at all . The main effect of solar power has been to impoverish the poorer sections of society, but to enrich those “entrepreneurs” who queued up to collect hundreds of millions in subsidies before their companies went bankrupt. It is difficult not to see it as a deliberate attempt to destabilise democracy and grab power by a minority.

Yet the “believers” keep seeing what they want not what is actually happening. Still it’s not new in science, remember N rays, Piltdown man, even phlogiston.

The process of diffusion in the vertical direction in a gravitational field effectively turns a “level base” into a “sloping base” like a concrete driveway running down a hillside.

This diffusion process ensures that the sum of the PE and KE of individual molecules has a propensity towards equality in all molecules at all altitudes. Those lower down (with less PE) thus have higher KE, leading to higher temperature in the lower regions.

There will be some absorption of Solar insolation at all levels in the Venus atmosphere, because we know at least some gets through to the surface. Think of this absorption as being like lots of different size loads of sand dumped on that sloping driveway. In general, the piles will be smaller as you go towards the top. So there’s no real propensity for convection rising in the atmosphere (sand from higher piles flowing down through the bigger piles further down the slope) so what happens is simply that the amount of radiation varies at different levels to get rid of the sand. But it stops when it gets down to the concrete driveway. The mean amount of radiation has to equate with the incident radiation, so this requirement (long ago) set the level of the driveway, but not its gradient – gravity and the specific heat of the gas set the gradient.

Now I know that some radiation (roughly half) is directed towards the hotter surface, but those who understand what Prof Johnson proved, will realise that the electro-magnetic energy in such radiation is never converted to thermal energy in a hotter region than that from whence it came. Instead it is immediately re-emitted, just as if “pseudo scattered.” Hence the energy in all radiation from the atmosphere always ends up eventually getting to space, even if it strikes the surface, or gets partly absorbed by cooler gas and subsequently re-emitted.

So the diffusion process in a gravitational field sets the gradient of the temperature plot in the atmosphere, with some small variation depending on the specific heat of the gases. The incident Solar radiative flux sets the overall level. These combine to produce a sloping, near linear temperature plot which of course intercepts the surface at a temperature which is determined by the input factors just mentioned, and nothing else.

Any additional absorption of either incident or upwelling radiation merely adds temporary energy which will be quickly radiated away and, even though such radiation is in all directions, it will eventually transfer energy out of the planetary system and back to space.

Venus is a good example, because it is so much more obvious that the surface is not heated to the temperature it reaches by the direct Solar radiation it absorbs. Instead, an interplay of conduction (diffusion) and radiation at the surface/atmosphere interface keeps the surface at a temperature close to that of the base of the atmosphere.

Which came first – the chicken or the egg? The temperature of the base of the atmosphere must have come first because otherwise it would be just too much of a coincidence that the same formula “works” on all planets with sufficient atmospheres.

So, if you don’t accept the above, then please explain in a similar level of detail, exactly what you think explains the surface temperature, being sure to keep within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics and atmospheric physics, as I have.